VectorCraft

Vector illustration; an open-source, clean-room reimplementation of Adobe Illustrator, rebuilt in pure Rust.

A fast, open-source, clean-room take on the Adobe Illustrator workflow. It runs natively on macOS, Windows, Linux and FreeBSD, and in the browser via WebAssembly. Built by the ArtCraft team.

VectorCraft on getartcraft.com · ArtCraft · All Crafting Apps

_{Neon Drive: a Pathfinder-cut sun, live Outer Glow on the type and grid, and clipping masks · examples/neon-drive.vectorcraft}

[!NOTE] ArtCraft is a community of artists from all walks of life. Digital, generative, music, games — if you make things, you're one of us. Come say hi on Discord.

A look around · Made in VectorCraft · Why VectorCraft · Quick start · Status · Downloads · The Crafting Apps · License

A look around

Live Blends and Layers: editable key paths, smooth colour, every object a row	Pen and Direct Selection: real Bézier anchors and handles, plus a contextual task bar
Perspective Grid: art attached to its planes stays editable in perspective · examples/perspective-city.vectorcraft	Multiple artboards, light theme: Pathfinder · Gradient Mesh · live radial Repeat · Envelope Distort · examples/feature-sheet.vectorcraft

Made in VectorCraft

Every piece below was built entirely through VectorCraft's command API, the same one the MCP server exposes to agents, and exported by VectorCraft's own renderer. The source files are in examples/.

Neon Drive: synthwave poster with glowing type and grid	Dusk: gradient sky, glowing sun, layered mountains
Live Blends: 70 steps, smooth colour, editable spines
Radial Repeat: a live mandala	Envelope Distort: striped type warped into a flag
Gradient Mesh: shaded spheres	Pathfinder: a crescent and stars from exact booleans

Why VectorCraft

• Familiar. Illustrator's layout, tools, menus, panels and shortcuts: the Pen, Direct Selection, Pathfinder, Smart Guides, Appearance, Swatches, Layers and more. You already know how to use it.
• Fast. Multithreaded SIMD rendering off the UI thread. 20,000 shapes render in about 27 ms at full retina resolution while the interface stays at 120 fps.
• Robust. Exact curve booleans (no "cannot perform operation"), unlimited undo via structural sharing, and property-tested file round trips.
• Open. A documented native format (.vectorcraft, JSON), first-class SVG, PDF (and PDF-compatible .ai) import and export, PNG/JPEG/WebP export, Export for Screens, and SVGZ, templates, GIF, TIFF and BMP on open.
• Agent-native. Every menu item, tool gesture, panel and dialog can be driven over a JSON control channel and an MCP server, so Claude and other agents can draw, edit and export the way a person does.
• Everywhere. One codebase for the desktop apps and the same UI in the browser.

Quick start

cargo run --release -p vectorcraft                          # desktop app
cargo run --release -p vectorcraft -- examples/dusk-poster.vectorcraft
cargo run --release -p vectorcraft -- --control 7979        # + JSON control channel
cargo run --release -p vectorcraft-cli -- mcp               # MCP server (stdio)
cargo run --release -p vectorcraft-cli -- run --in examples/ribbons.vectorcraft --export out.pdf   # headless batch
cargo run --release -p vectorcraft-cli -- bench examples/neon-drive.vectorcraft                   # render timing
cargo xtask bundle                                        # dist/VectorCraft.app (macOS)
cd apps/vectorcraft-web && trunk build --release            # web build → dist/web
cargo xtask ci                                            # fmt, clippy, tests, layering, wasm, vendor names

Japanese fonts come from storytold/craft-fonts, an optional build input (releases always use it): CRAFT_F cargo run --release -p vectorcraft (an absolute path). Without it, Japanese text uses the installed system fonts. See docs/development.md.

On machines with two graphics processors, VectorCraft renders on the power-saving (integrated) one by default on Windows and macOS, and on the one the desktop runs on under Linux. To choose, use Preferences › Performance › Graphics Processor and restart. If a graphics processor can't show the window, VectorCraft starts again on the next one. To pick one when starting the app, set WGPU_POWER_PREF=high (or low), or WGPU_ADAPTER_NAME to part of its name, such as WGPU_ADAPTER_NAME=nvidia (see docs/development.md).

On native Wayland, winit 0.30 does not deliver dropped files. To open an SVG, use File › Open; to place artwork in the current document, copy and paste the file in a file manager. For file drag-and-drop, set Preferences › Performance › Linux Display Server to X11 (XWayland) and restart, or start the app with WAYLAND_DISPLAY= vectorcraft: the window then opens through XWayland, where drops work (see docs/development.md).

On Linux under KDE Plasma 6.3 or later with Wayland, a drawing tablet's pen moves the cursor but VectorCraft doesn't respond to it yet (#491). Open the window through XWayland instead, with the same preference or WAYLAND_DISPLAY= vectorcraft (see docs/development.md).

Use it from Claude Code and other agents

Register the MCP server with Claude Code:

claude mcp add vectorcraft -- /path/to/vectorcraft-cli mcp

To keep an agent to one project's files, give it folders to read and write (the same flags as PhotoCraft):

claude mcp add vectorcraft -- /path/to/vectorcraft-cli mcp --automation-read-root /work/project --automation-write-root /work/project

The details are in docs/mcp.md and docs/control-protocol.md.

For the experimental, unsupported 64-bit Windows 7 build, see Windows 7 instructions.

Status

VectorCraft is under active development. ROADMAP.md has the stage, the numbers by dimension and what's next; docs/target-app-parity.md the full parity assessment and docs/gaps.md the ranked list of what's missing.

Where we are (2026-10-10): alpha. About 88% of Illustrator 2026's menu items, tools, effects and formats exist (92.5% of menu items do something), feature depth is ~75%, and we estimate ~65% "ready for real work" for a mainstream illustrator (~62% against all of Illustrator): everyday vector illustration is close to usable: drawing and path tools, Pathfinder and Shape Builder, paint, gradients, appearance and transparency, type with styles, threading and Hebrew/Arabic bidirectional layout, and files (SVG, PDF and PDF-compatible .ai with PDF/X, EPS, DXF, EMF/WMF, raster formats, PSD out and PSD/PSB in as their merged image, Print, Package). Affinity documents (.af from Affinity 3, .afdesign, .afpub and, by their content, .afphoto from Affinity 1 and 2) open and place natively: layers, groups, artboards and pages, curves and shapes, fills, gradients and strokes, clipping and masks, text and images, with what didn't come in (effects, adjustments, brushes, master pages…) listed in the import warning; a file whose native data can't be read opens as its embedded preview, saying why. VectorCraft doesn't write Affinity files. Current .af validation includes 33 pinned files, native save/reload and every-board SVG/PDF/PSD export, with fixes for Affinity 3 artboards, source-backed JPEGs and text runs. Scope and limits; source audit and remaining gaps. The interface speaks English, German, Japanese, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian and Ukrainian (and Czech and Brazilian Portuguese in the menus); localization-parity.md has the details. The scores are self-assessed from our code against Illustrator's public documentation; target-app-parity.md explains how far to trust them.

What's missing:

• reliable exchange of Illustrator's own .ai files (layer structure in real files; Illustrator's editing data isn't written);
• an interaction-fidelity pass covering every tool's modifiers and small behaviours;
• 3D and Materials beyond the initial live Revolve (Extrude & Bevel, Inflate, Rotate, materials);
• about half of the Photoshop-style raster effects (29 of 57 still missing) and the Effect Gallery;
• CJK composition for vertical type (vertical type itself has initial support, with a Japanese interface);
• scripting, and the rest of Variables (image and graph kinds, dataset import);
• generative AI features.

Where we're going: next is the interaction-fidelity pass, .ai files from real users and start-up stability, alongside the raster-effects package; then type, the Illustrator 2026 additions and 3D. The ranked list is in docs/gaps.md.

Workspace: crates/{geom, color, doc, pathops, text, effects, three-d, trace, brush, render, svg, pdf, eps, cad, metafile, format, tools, engine, ui-egui, mcp, testkit} and apps/{vectorcraft, vectorcraft-cli, vectorcraft-web}. The egui frontend is its own crate, so the UI can be swapped without touching the engine.

Agent and contributor rules (clean-room, the asset policy, no panics in shipped code, quality gates) are in AGENTS.md; docs/development.md explains how VectorCraft avoids crashing, and docs/releasing.md how releases are built, signed and published. Every bundled asset is listed with its licence in ASSETS.md.

Downloads

New to VectorCraft? Download it from the VectorCraft page on getartcraft.com. That's the easiest way to install it.

Want a specific build or format? On GitHub, the latest release has every build listed below, and all releases has earlier versions and their notes. `` in the file names is the version number, and SHA256SUMS.txt lists a checksum for every file.

Windows

Installers and executables are code-signed.

macOS

Linux

FreeBSD

Web (WebAssembly)

The Crafting Apps

VectorCraft is one of the Crafting Apps: free, open-source creative tools from the ArtCraft team, each written from scratch in Rust and each able to stand on its own.

	App	What it's for	Code	Learn more
	PhotoCraft	Image editing: layers, masks, type and real PSD files	GitHub	Website
	VectorCraft	Vector illustration · you are here	GitHub	Website
	FilmCraft	Video editing, color and sound	GitHub	Website
	LightCraft	Photo library and raw development	GitHub	Website
	PdfCraft	Reading, organizing and protecting PDFs	GitHub	Website
	EffectCraft	Motion graphics and visual effects	GitHub	Website
	DesignCraft	Page layout and publishing	GitHub	Website

And ArtCraft itself, our AI image and video studio for artists who want real control.

Come make things with us

Our Discord is where artists of every kind hang out: people who paint, shoot, draw, cut film, set type, and people still figuring out what they like to make. Share what you're working on, ask for help, tell us what's broken, or tell us what you wish these tools could do. Whatever your medium and however long you've been at it, you're welcome here.

discord.gg/artcraft · getartcraft.com · The Crafting Apps · VectorCraft

Star history

License and credits

VectorCraft is dual-licensed under MIT or Apache-2.0, at your option. Copyright (c) 2026 ArtCraft Team and the VectorCraft contributors. Required notices are in NOTICE.

Bundled fonts, icons, images and other assets keep their own open licenses; each one is listed with its author, source and license in ASSETS.md. Release builds also embed the fonts of craft-fonts (Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Arabic faces; SIL Open Font License 1.1).

The app icon (an engraved dragon on VectorCraft red, #e8573f) is the owner's original artwork; its palette and files are in assets/app-icon/.

The ArtCraft name, wordmark and logos in docs/brand/ are trademarks of the ArtCraft Team and are not covered by this license. They may be used only unmodified, and only as part of this repository and VectorCraft, under docs/brand/LICENSE-brand.txt. Forks and modified versions must remove them.

_{Adobe, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, Lightroom, Acrobat, After Effects and InDesign are trademarks or registered trademarks of Adobe Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. VectorCraft is an independent, open-source project and is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by Adobe Inc.; these names are used only to describe the workflows it is compatible with.}

_{Made by the ArtCraft team and community.}